Overland Storage, Inc. announced an expanded relationship
with Sphere 3D Corporation, a virtualization technology solution provider,
as a result of Sphere 3D's recently announced agreement to acquire the
product portfolio of V3 Systems, Inc.
Once completed, this acquisition by Sphere 3D is
expected to enable incompatible devices and applications to run over the
cloud. Pursuant to Overland's existing supply agreement with Sphere 3D,
Overland's NAS platform
will be included in the V3 offering,
which will be delivered through its channel partners.
Sphere 3D recently announced a definitive agreement to
acquire V3 Systems, of Salt Lake City, UT. V3 is the creator of the Desktop
Cloud Orchestrator virtualization software, which is designed to allow
administrators to manage local, cloud hosted and hybrid virtual desktop
deployments, as well as a series of purpose-built, compact, efficient and
easy-to-manage servers, known as V3 appliances. As an embedded OEM VMware
partner, V3 has changed the speed, ease of deployment and even the size of
the data center required for VDI.
The rapidly changing virtualization landscape continues to
have a significant impact on storage systems. In 2010, 41.8% of external
storage systems' capacity was attached to virtualized environments. IDC
expects 2014 to be the crossover year in which more storage capacity will be
shipped to virtualized environments than to non-virtualized environments - a
good chunk of this capacity will be for desktop virtualization
infrastructures. IDC forecasts that by 2016, storage attached to virtualized
x86 workloads will be 71.1% of external storage systems capacity.
"We expect the combination of the joint technologies of
Sphere 3D and V3, along with the Overland NAS platform, to create a unique
value proposition that satisfies pain points in today's growing market. This
new level of flexibility creates an opportunity to deliver new business
value to our customers, including faster time to deployment, reduced
complexity, increased performance, as well as cost efficiencies that go
right to the bottom line," said Eric Kelly, president and CEO, Overland.
V3, Sphere 3D, and
Overland
have been working together for several months and Overland began shipping
the V3 Systems products in December 2013. In addition, pursuant to the
existing agreements between Overland and Sphere 3D, the parties intend to
deliver and provide support for both Sphere 3D's existing and newly acquired
V3 product suites through Overland's global network of channel partners and
service providers.
Peter Tassiopoulos, CEO, Sphere3D, said: "I couldn't be
more excited with the blended solution we have created with Overland and V3.
Overland's massive global reach will enable us to create the market
penetration velocity needed to deliver our solution through a proven and
trusted partner."
Sphere 3D's purchase of the V3 product portfolio is
subject to various closing conditions, including the completion of due
diligence, financing conditions, receipt of approval of the Toronto Stock
Exchange and various other conditions customary of a transaction of its
nature. Sphere 3D has notified Overland that the closing is expected to
occur on or about February 28, 2014.